Running Redhat 9 and having a problem during bootup with my /etc/inittab file. The error is:

Init: /etc/inittab[54]: 2345: unknown action filed

The line in the /etc/inittab file its complaining about it

b::2345: once:/usr/include/esc/mingetty

of which /usr/include/esc/mingetty does not exist.

So, I tried booting up into rescue mode off the Redhat CD, mount the sysimage to modify the inittab and no go. Inittab seems to be write protected and I've tried everything to modify it.

I also tried creating /usr/include/esc/ and cp'd mingetty to that dir and no go either......Redhat just locks up.

Any suggestions on how to modify that inittab file or change permissions?

Thanks,
Keith

If you already know the file doesn't exist, the the best thing you might do it is to remove this line, or even better, comment it by placing a '#' character at the beginning of the line.

Reboot the machine and check it again.

Good luck!

Oohhh by the way. You shouldn't change the permissions of this file, but change to root user. For it run:

su

the root password will be asked for. Then you can edit the file using 'vi' or 'joe'. I preffer joe by you'll probably don't have it installed. So try:

vi inittab

Then press the key 'i' to change to insert mode

Put the comment (#)

To save and exit press: Esc + :wq Don't forget the semicolon ':'
To exit withouth saving: Esc + :q

Good luck once again!

I've tried removing the line and get a read-only error in emacs and vi

Can't move, rename, or edit inittab I assume that the linux rescue mode user is root...





Thanks,
Keith

Did you try "whoami" to make sure you're operating as root?

It seems odd not to be able even to move the file as root. Something similar to this happened to me once after I made some truly awful mistake and lost permission, as root, to do anything, and I mean ANYTHING. In my typical fashion I just reinstalled from my distro disks and spent several hours getting back to "normal."

I was going to suggest doing "mv" on the file and then re-writing it by hand, till this last post of yours... Wish I had some better ideas.

Did a "whoami" and i'm root......

Thanks for the suggestion.

I guess in the rescue system, the whole filesystem is mounted read-only. Maybe you could try to remount it, this time writable:

mount -n -o remount,rw /

Note: Just googled this command, better check the syntax yourself first